University of Wisconsin-Madison: Stop the cruel and unnecessary testing of cats in experiments

A beautiful cat named Double Trouble was taken into the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and horribly tested on, and unnecessary practice that occurs often. With a name like Double Trouble, you would think that this brave orange tabby could stand up to anything, but she was no match for experimenters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW), who screwed a stainless-steel post to her skull, put a toxic substance in her ears to deafen her, and implanted metal coils in her eyes and electrical devices in her head. In the end, Double Trouble was decapitated and her brain was cut apart. Will you help save animals like her from being caged, cut up, drugged, dissected, or killed by signing this petition right now?

The more you learn about Double Trouble's suffering at UW, the more I know you will want us to do as much as possible to stop this cruelty. UW knows this, too. That's why the university spent three years trying to keep this story hidden from the public. If UW wasn't taken to court and forced to release evidence of their barbarism, we may have never known the truth about what went on in its laboratory.

The misery that Double Trouble endured was horrendous. She underwent invasive surgeries on her ears, eyes, skull, and brain and had a post screwed to her skull to immobilize her head during experiments. During these sessions, her head was bolted in place and her body confined to a nylon bag. She was starved for up to six days at a time leading up to the experiments in order to coerce her into cooperating in exchange for a morsel of food. The surgeries and experiments went on for months, even as her health deteriorated.

In the end, experimenters noted that Double Trouble had became too ill for them to continue torturing, and the devices implanted in her ears didn't work, so they killed her. The experimenters justified torturing this dear cat and dozens like her by stating that they needed to "keep up a productive publication record that ensures our constant funding."

Compassionate people will not let this cruelty or these experimenters go unchallenged. Please speak out against horrifying animal abuse right now. Double Trouble—like dozens of other cats, including Cali, Broc, Daisy, Slinky, Timmy, Patches, Marble, Tiger, and Mama Grey—was hurt and killed because, when it comes to exploiting animals in the name of science, there's a lot of money to be had. In fact, the experiment that killed Double Trouble is part of a larger project that has already received more than $3 million in taxpayer money through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Even the experimenters' own "productive publication record" is a sham, as not a single paper has been published in any scientific journal as a result Double Trouble's misery. But NIH is still throwing money at UW and other laboratories across the country to keep up this cruelty.

By signing this petition today, you'll be helping to push UW to stop the deadly experiments—and NIH to stop funding them—and work toward a day when no animal suffers as Double Trouble did. Stopping horrifying experiments on animals like those at UW will not be easy. It took three years of pressure just to get UW to release the files that first brought that dear tabby's suffering to light. But we will not rest until we've stopped deadly tests like those I've described here. Thank you for your support for all animals, particularly those enduring painful experiments in university laboratories. Thank you for you help.